WONDERS OF LIFE

There is no more all-encompassing source of mystery than the universe. Since the dawn of humanity, its vastness has elicited endless wonder and questions that have consumed mankind's intellect and imagination. Expanding on the promise of 2010's Peabody Award-winning WONDERS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, Cox takes viewers even farther to explore how deep space can be explained- and even experienced-by re-examining the familiar here on Earth.

A former keyboard player in the UK pop band D:Ream, Cox is a noted physicist who transforms cutting-edge science and astronomy into accessible information that is as digestible as it is fascinating. As a companion to the series, Harper Collins will release Cox's gorgeously illustrated #1 London Times-best-selling companion book, "Wonders of the Universe" (Harper Design; Hardcover; July 12, 2011; $29.99), in the United States.

Cox describes the cosmos as "unlikely" because he believes that it is only through remarkable balance and cosmic engineering that it is able to exist at all. In the all-new season of WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE, Cox illustrates how the same physical laws that describe the behavior of light, gravity, time, matter and energy here on Earth can explain the qualities of the greater universe. Traveling to the deserts of Namibia, Cox demonstrates how the universe continues to become increasingly disordered and how ultimately there will be no stars, planets or galaxies left in the cosmos. Later, he journeys to a deserted prison in Rio de Janeiro to explain how the chemical elements were made in the hearts of stars, and also shows viewers how the water of the Victoria Falls in Zambia behaves the way light does around a black hole.